Author: Wildbow

Left in the Dust – 16.5 | Pale

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“To begin with, we want you to swear oaths,” Lis addressed the group.  “You’re to do us no harm, and you would act to protect us if we were attacked.  We’re to be included in any protective measures you put into place.  Edith rejoins the council with voting powers.  Maricica can’t and I don’t care to.”

Verona made the ugliest, sneeriest, most unimpressed face she could.

“In exchange, I will support your vision for Kennet, and help stabilize the situation.  Edith will support the shrines, clean up the echoes, and lend power to all aspects of the town.  Maricica can help foil Abraham Musser and those in his orbit.”

“That’s bullshit,” Lucy answered, folding her arms.  “That’s a lot of bullshit.  You’ll fix what you broke, and in exchange you get total forgiveness and protection?”

“We’re starting by asking for the same considerations you had when you joined.”

“Which are the same considerations all Others got,” Miss told Lis, stepping forward.  “You included.  Protection, up to a point, inclusion.  Each of you violated trusts.”

Maricica tittered.  Little hairs on the back of Verona’s neck stood up.  “If you trust a Faerie, haven’t you dug your own grave?”

“Some Fae are just fine,” Verona told her.  “And some make Cherrypop look noble.  Which, like, she’s great in her own way, but she’s not noble, at all, and-”

“Is this how you-”

“-and I’m talking about you when I’m saying you’re worse than Cherrypop,” Verona pressed, talking over Maricica.  “Why are you even here?  You hurt Brie.  You’re pathetic.”

She didn’t like how shaky she felt, challenging Maricica.  Like the emotions were leaking out.

“Are we to stoop to childish insults and petulance?” Maricica asked.  “To respond I’d have to stoop to your level.”

“I’m stooping!” Verona challenged her.  “I’m petulant!  I’m a kid, I’m pissy, I’m down to throw a tantrum.  You guys fucked up my hometown!  Tell me, was it worth it?  Because you guys look like crap.”

“And here I thought we were here to negotiate,” Maricica said, sighing.

“Maybe, but to negotiate, don’t we need to agree on the facts?” Lucy asked.  “In our Civics class we were talking about how two groups who don’t share the same reality can’t come to an agreement.”

“And the reality is you guys were buttholes who screwed a lot of things up,” Verona added.  “Can we get on the same page about that?”

“I suggest we leave,” Maricica told Lis.  “Not that you’re able to leave in actuality, but we don’t need to entertain this childishness.”

“If I may?” Guilherme asked.

All heads turned his way.  Maricica stood taller, the angle of chin and head changing.

“To move past the childishness, and in the interest of offering an informed opinion… you look poorly, Maricica.  Your glamour is thin, and a tension has set deep inside you.”

“I’ve been dogged by a primeval beast.  For much that reason, I’ll have to depart soon, or that so-called dog will appear here.”

“Why are you here?” Lucy asked.

“To show my face, and to keep old agreements.”

Edith glanced at Maricica, then looked away.

“And you?” Verona asked Lis.  “You killed Ken, huh?”

“Forces like Ken don’t die so much as they break down into constituent spirits and forces,” Edith said, still not meeting anyone’s eyes.

“And if I die I become a corpse,” Verona replied, “Probably end up riddled with maggots, decaying, breaking down into soil or whatever.  Semantics.  Are you going to tell me the Carmine Beast didn’t really die?”

“She lives on in the Carmine Exile,” Lis replied.

“Shit deal,” Verona replied.  “So hey, Lis… what’s up?  What do you want?  You made this deal, you asked for stuff for these other guys…”

“My own safety too,” Lis answered.

“You had that, more or less as you have it now,” Miss told Lis.  “You weren’t a greater spirit with a Carmine-created edifice around you, but you had few enemies.  There must be more to why you took this path.”

“Because I believe in it,” Lis replied.

“In what?”

“Change,” Lis replied.  She turned, and as she did, the composite pieces that made up her body shuffled.  She settled into a smaller form.  That of a teenager of about sixteen years of age, pretty, with black hair and a white hairband over the top of her head.  She wore a collared shirt under a sweater, and a plaid skirt.  It was the uniform of the St. Victor’s students.  The school was tiny, about a third of the size of the public school, and more parents seemed to send their kids there because it was ‘nice’ and had the small class sizes than because they were religious.

“We were changing things,” Miss told her.

The trees behind Lis broke apart, bark peeling away, the bare, smooth wood of the trunks parting, planks falling away, the ends of one grouping of planks sliding down another, tumbling into position, where they slid easily into the dirt.  “So is the Carmine Exile.”

“Faster,” Edith added.

“You could have reached out to me, or raised concerns.  You could have raised things at the council.”

“You would have stopped us,” Maricica said.

“Not necessarily” Miss told her.

“You would have.  They would have,” Maricica asserted.

Lis fell backwards.  The wood gathered itself into the shape of a bench in the moment before she landed on it, and the landing shook the outer flakes away, revealing sanded, lacquered wood, the edges rounded off.  A pew.  Floorboards spread out around the feet of the pew and beneath Lis’ feet, stopping about a foot out. The shadow that extended from beneath her wasn’t that of a catholic student, but was instead someone large with a knife in hand.

“I never believed you could do it.  I believe the Carmine Exile can,” Lis addressed Miss.  “You’d have tried to do it over decades and centuries and I think you would have failed.”

“Would I?” Miss asked.

Lis shrugged.  “You did.  Things happen in the meantime.  The Carmine Exile has a chance to achieve something over years.  Upsetting the artificial order.”

Verona looked over at Miss.  Miss didn’t give any sign she was affected by the statements, but she turned away, walking away.  Verona could see the edge of the paper Miss was holding.  With the triple-layered realm.  Kennet, the undercity of Kennet, and a Lost reflection of it.

“You sacrificed John, you did away with Ken,” Lucy accused.  “How could we trust you?  You could play along and pretend to be allies helping us, one of you on the council, then you could turn around and pull the same kind of garbage on us.”

“Because we won,” Maricica replied.  “Why would we do that when we have what we want?”

“I don’t think Edith has what she wants,” Matthew spoke up.  He shook his head, and it looked like it took effort to say the words past the feelings that he was holding back, something between contempt and anger.  “I remember you cried, Edith, after.  You cried a lot.  Or was that a ploy?”

“I’m not that kind of person, who’d cry crocodile tears.”

“You’re the kind of person who’d poison her husband and help people who’d kill a friend of ours,” Matthew said.

“We didn’t kill him, we let him die.  The Judges were the ones who asked, he was the one who decided.  Lis said these three girls tried to stop him, they weren’t successful, what was I supposed to do?”

“Not help Charles?” Lucy asked, quiet.  “Not help John’s death along?”

“He knew what he was doing, he knew someone with more conviction and more raw power might come in.”

“Yalda’s power,” Lucy said.  “Not his.”

“He chose to fight, he lost, that’s what happens sometimes,” Edith replied.  “Power is for those who take it.”

Matthew shook his head.  “I can’t tell if you actually believe that or if you’re desperately trying to justify what you did.  But I’m not going to forget that you cried, you begged, you bent the truth, you manipulated, you pressured, you denied tangible reality and I don’t know if that was Maricica’s suggestion, to try to bend truth and distort reality until I started to doubt the facts-”

“No,” Maricica murmured.

“-but it was ugly.  What you did to John was ugly.  What you did to Ken and to Kennet?  To Miss, everyone on the council?  What you did to these kids?  Ugly.  How did I ever think you could be a decent mom?”

“I would have loved our child with everything I am.”

“Like you supposedly loved me?”

“I did.”

“No.  What you gave me was ugliness and poison, and I hope that you stew in it now.  Rot because of it, Edith,” Matthew told her, with a tremor in his voice.  “Stop.”

She looked away.

He clenched his fist, then dropped his hand.  “But don’t ever pretend you’re okay with this, because I heard you sobbing, I heard you cry, I heard your words, none of which were sorry.  Pretending you all won, Maricica?  I know at least one case where that’s not true.”

“Semantics.  We seized victory,” Maricica said.

“You-”

“Losers,” Verona said, at the same time Matthew spoke, interrupting him by accident.  She glanced at him to see if he wanted to go ahead, then said, “You won but you became losers by doing it, as I see it.”

“Yeah,” Matthew amended.  “Basically that.”

“We’re only at the beginning stages,” Maricica told them.  “We’re extending you a grace, granting you the opportunity to hold onto something, before it all slips through your fingers.”

“If Kennet dies, Lis dies too, doesn’t she?” Verona asked.

“Kennet won’t die, but it may change,” Maricica replied.

“I’m used to change,” Lis added.  “I’ll keep what I want of myself in the transition, I’ll shape the end result.  This may no longer be a place for so-called ‘innocents’, but it can still be a sanctuary.”

“For who?” Miss asked.  “For what?”

“For those like me.  I never lied about who I was or where I came from,” Lis told them.  “I was born into the shuffle of students at a boarding school, I saw what the systems of this world were churning out.  What ‘innocence‘ really looked like-”

She gave the word ‘innocence’ such contempt.

“-and it was easy to throw that into disarray, to upend those social groups, turn friend against friend.  That’s why I believe the Carmine Exile can do this.  Why he needs to do it.  Practitioners might know more than innocents, but they don’t know better.”

“They can,” Miss replied.

“Charles only came around when he was brought low, back before he was the Carmine Exile.”

“I was there,” Miss replied.

“Too many of them are too complacent, safe in their ivory towers, protected by the Seal of Solomon.  They need the same treatment.”

“Is that what he’s doing with the gainsaying?” Verona asked.

“Part of it.  We’ll see the next steps soon.”

“We should get back to the negotiation,” Edith said, terse.

“This is part of it,” Maricica murmured.

Edith didn’t look happy, still wasn’t looking at Matthew or any of the rest of them, and there was a moment, the focus no longer on Verona or Lucy or any of their bodyguards, where Verona could see that even though Lis wore a young teenager’s face, the city spirit looked tired.

“How hard is it?” Verona asked.

“What part?” Lis asked.

“Being Kennet.”

“As it is now?” Lis asked.  “Straining myself every moment to shape the outcome?  Difficult.  But it’ll be worth it.  It should become easier.”

“Why?” Lucy asked.  “To give shelter to murderers?”

“To give shelter to Nibble and Chloe.  To goblins.  To the Eater of the Unborn, to other Others.  Let this become a place they can regroup, organize their thoughts, or be organized.  Let’s hone those blades.  We can introduce some uncertainty, we can make the strongest and most overconfident of them fear the dark again.”

“Until they go after Charles,” Matthew said.

“They had their shot, early on.  They decided to be greedy and grab for territory instead.”

Maricica stepped over to Lis’ side, placing a hand on her shoulder.  “I should go.  The thing that hunts me is badly poisoned, it’s slow enough I can stop places for more than a few breaths, but it’s close to the town now.  I’ll be in touch.”

Lis nodded.

“Hey, is that Avery’s friend, Gilkey?” Verona asked.  “The poison?”

She quickly turned her head toward Miss and Matthew.  “He went missing.”

Maricica didn’t titter a laugh, and didn’t reply.  She turned, stepping into the shadows, wrapped in the one gauzy wing, which folded in ways that paired pattern with pattern across the folds.

“Hey!” Lucy called out.

A bit of light glinted in the trees.

Branches began to fall, one by one, trees sliding along diagonal lines, upper portions cleanly severed from the base.  Branches rustled, and dead leaves scattered.

Maricica didn’t move as the trees toppled, three on one side of her, two on another.  Everyone else in the clearing hurried to move back.  Lis abandoned her pew, becoming adult again as she jogged a few steps away.

Guilherme wasn’t where he’d been standing, Verona realized, and as if the thought was an unfinished sentence, Guilherme appeared at the end of it to finish the thought, like a …he’s over there.

He had a blade drawn, and he walked among the trees that were still toppling, branches catching on branch while the diagonally cut trunks dug deep into earth to slow the falls.

He exhaled slowly, breath fogging, and put the blade out, toward Maricica’s chin.  She had to raise it as far as it would go while walking backwards to avoid being impaled, as he strode forward.

“The primeval beast comes.  You don’t want it here any more than I do,” Maricica said.

“Every moment you’re here, your escape and your ability to distance yourself from it will be more arduous.  You were asked a question, you worm, too filthy and ungraceful to be called Fae.”

Maricica, still backing up, glanced sidelong at Verona and Lucy.  Lucy had her hands on Verona’s shoulders, and the two of them were almost simultaneously trying to shield the others.  The trees finished settling with groans.  A big branch laid across the pew.

“If you harm me, Charles will act accordingly.”

“If I harm you, it will be because I am Winter, I do not stray.  My course is set, and he has to accept that as truth.  It is for you to mind you do not cross my path without being mindful.”

“It would be unjust to punish Guilherme for your mistake,” Miss told her.

“For someone who despises the Seal, you’re still victim to its greatest traps.  You believe in justice,” Maricica told Miss.  “Existence is unfair.  Didn’t you tell Clementine that, Guilherme?  You told Lucy the same.  And Verona.”

“You’re busy thinking about trying to evade me,” Guilherme told Maricica.  “Realities have changed since our last spar.  I will render you a twitching grub if you so much as think about it a second time.  If Charles would punish me, he may do so.”

“He would punish them.  All of them,” Lis said.

The ivory-skinned, long-haired giant of a Faerie didn’t waver in the slightest.  He didn’t blink, didn’t breathe, his sword’s point didn’t move.

Verona’s hand found her spell cards, hopefully out of sight of Maricica, Lis, and Edith, blocked from view by her body and Lucy’s.

They felt cold, somehow.  Useless.

She didn’t have any magic items in reach.  She clutched the cards for reasons that had nothing to do with practice.

“I’ll spare us all that embarrassment.  I’ll spare you, winter-touched oaf,” Maricica told Guilherme.  She gave Lucy and Verona a sidelong glance, unable to turn her head fully their way, standing where she was.  “Gilkey did me the favor of poisoning the beast, in exchange for a pledge from me.  He is a distillation of poison and the entirety of him runs in the veins of the primeval creature.  His poison is so virulent that it turns flesh into more poison, but the beast regenerates.  As it stands, they are in rough equilibrium.  Now the beast walks when it would have been running, and it crawls when it would have been walking.”

“And?” Lucy asked.  “What happens next?”

“They will remain locked in that battle for a time.  I will find other ways to deal the beast a series of blows.  Each time, the man made of alchemy will gain purchase.  It will either die or, more likely, I’ll bring it low and its master, Madam Durocher, will call it back and man of alchemy will be purged from it.  She won’t hurt him or bind him.  He’ll be freed, the beast will thoroughly lose my trail in the meantime, and I’ll give Gilkey what I pledged him.”

“That will take years to play out,” Guilherme told her.  “The primeval beasts are not to be toyed with.”

“As I’m well aware.”

“How low have you fallen, grub?” Guilherme asked her.  “You’ve become graceless, your schemes are this?  Not even thinking two moves in advance, you’re reduced to one, perhaps?”

“I have other schemes at play that take higher priority.  As you say, the primeval beasts are not to be toyed with.”

“You stand at the same level as a fae-kin gnarling, a teind, a trooping faeling.  To think you’re naturally born to the Dark Fall.  A word in the right ear would see your betters come to dispatch you.  They are made to look lesser by mere association with you.”

“Do as you will.  Charles would treat it the same way as you putting that blade through my throat.”

“What lowlier thing than that which could once fly, that must now crawl?”

“That which could once change, that now is stalled?” Maricica asked.

“Even Charles could not fault me if such words reached the ears of the Winter court.”

“They already hunt me.”

“As a favor to a human ally.  Those words would change it to a matter of pride.  Crawl away, misbegotten child.”

“I’ll walk, thank you,” she told Guilherme, only now raising a hand and pushing the blade aside.  “If you’d truly make me crawl, you’d have the beast on your doorstep.”

She walked away.  He watched her go.

“That was satisfying,” Verona commented.

“It wasn’t meant to be so.  They were things that needed to be said, nothing more.”

“Are we done, then?” Edith asked.  “Discussions failed?  You’d rather snipe at one another and be petty?”

“What you want is too far,” Matthew said.

“I want a lot more than what Lis asked for at the start,” Edith said, meeting his eyes.

“What’s too far?” Lis asked.  “And what are you wiling to give?  I’d have the likes of the Eater of the Unborn left alone.  Leave them to the undercity.  Kennet needs those who can defend it.”

“Nasty-ass old man ghoul?” Verona asked.  “Nah.”

“Those like him.  Or don’t, but I’d ask for my original terms to stand,” Lis said.  She became a man that kind of resembled Avery’s dad, but with dark hair, glasses, and a thin, trimmed beard.  He went on, “Oaths to do no harm, protection, coverage by any security, additions to the perimeter, or other systems you create.  Edith on the council.”

“Situations change.  You’ve changed,” Lucy said.  “Things happen.  If we made it indefinite, you could end up really regretting that we’re not equipped to stop Edith, or Maricica.  Or they could want us to stop you.”

“Or you could regret being buds with Charles a few months from now, if he went off the deep end,” Verona pointed out.  “I think Edith might have some regrets already, if she’s crying over how things ended up.”

Edith tensed, and it looked like she was going to say something.  She didn’t.

“Things haven’t ended up.  The ending is yet to come,” Lis replied, quiet, and it was unclear if he was soothing Edith or replying to them.

Lucy folded her arms, glancing down at Verona’s spell cards, which were still out of her pocket.  Verona pocketed them again.  Lucy paced away, arms folded.  She looked over toward Miss, who’d retreated a bit from the conversation.  Lis looked over too.

“Any ideas?” Verona asked Tashlit, quiet.

Tashlit shook her head.

Lucy looked over at Grandfather, who stood by with a hand on his gun at his hip.  He looked like a statue, unbreathing, no fog of breath in the cold fall evening.

Miss approached, and as she did, she passed Verona the paper she’d taken, that had the suggested arrangement for shrines and layers of Kennet.

“Yes,” Miss said, quiet.

“We’re doing this?” Lucy asked.

“Allowing for the terms.  Whatever preliminary deal we come up with, it will have to be discussed with the council before being finalized.”

“We’d expect no less,” Lis said.

“You said the end is yet to come?  In years, not decades, right?” Lucy asked.  “That’s what you said to Miss.  Charles’ plan is supposed to happen faster than that.”

“Yes.  Hopefully.”

“Then let’s talk about setting a time limit.  Limited protection for a limited time,” Lucy said.

“Two years?” Lis asked, tugging on his jacket to get it to sit better across narrow shoulders.

“I was thinking something closer to ten days.  If Charles is making a move-”

“No,” Edith said, abrupt.  “Don’t fish for answers.  Don’t insult us either.”

“Two years?” Lis asked, again.

“Three months?” Lucy asked.

“It’s helpful for you guys,” Verona said.  “In case things go bad, you might need us to be flexible.”

“I’m willing to make the sacrifice and do without your flexibility,” Lis said.  “Give us time to get there and show results.”

“Show good results before then,” Lucy replied.  “If it takes that long and we’re biting our nails or suffering in the meantime, that’s awful.  We need to be able to act in response to Musser.”

“Accepting this deal with us and obtaining our aid is what lets you act.  You can have your rearrangement, Edith’s help-”

“Don’t want it,” Matthew said.  “She should leave Kennet and go live with her parents.”

“I won’t be doing that,” Edith replied.

It was a bit cringey every time they bounced off one another.  Because Edith was pretty cringey.  But the way they sidetracked, and how personal it was, and because she knew how bad it felt for Matthew… it made Verona uncomfortable.

She felt like she’d gone to school in the clothes she’d slept in, rumpled and gross, being here and in the midst of this without her practice available.  It made literally everything else about existence and being around shitty people worse.  Like Edith.  Like her dad.

“We don’t want that kind of help,” Lucy said.  “We want the freedom to act in response to Musser, including you guys possibly allying with him-”

“We wouldn’t,” Edith said.

“Except you did.  Maricica made a deal with him,” Lucy retorted.  “And we don’t know how far that goes or where it goes.”

“It’ll be handled,” Lis said.

“Possibly by us,” Lucy pressed.  “His timeline is our deadline.”

“Yeah, that’s a non-negotiable, isn’t it?” Verona asked.  “Our hands would be tied, we can’t trust you guys because of the whole siccing a Dog Meat on us, sending the Egoist after Lucy’s mom…”

“John,” Lucy added.  “Freaking Yalda.  Ken.  Three teenagers who got killed and who knows what, because they happened to find the Carmine Furs?”

“How many people left town?  Lost their homes, livelihoods?” Verona threw another one in.

“A weak argument to finish with.”

“That’s not even the last of it, though,” Verona told Lis.  “This did a shitton of damage.”

“If we can delay Musser, the protection period extends,”

“Unreliable,” Lucy replied.  “How are we supposed to know you’re right about how long you delayed him?”

“We estimate.”

Verona perked up.  “On penalty of you guys forfeiting everything, across the board, Charles steps down-”

“You’re ridiculous,” Edith said.

“We’d be losing everything!” Lucy shouted, fist clenching. “If you aren’t absolutely sure-”

“Virtually nothing is absolute,” Edith bit back.  She turned to Lis.  “Maricica was right.  They’re children.”

“The fact we’re even negotiating with you in the first place is insanely gracious,” Lucy told Edith, her voice hard.  “You killed our friends.  The only reason we’re here is because there’s something like three thousand people left in Kennet-”

“Twenty-nine hundred,” Lis replied.  “In Kennet above.”

“And they deserve better than Kennet disappearing from the maps and becoming some hangout spot for shitty Others to get organized and hurt the rest of the world.”

“That’s simplistic,” Lis said.  He shook his head.  “It’s not about hurting the rest of the world.  It’s about stopping those who’d do the harm to others and to Others in particular.  John shot Alexander.  Verona unseated Bristow and drove him into the clutches of a worker caste of Fae.  It would be more of that, except you wouldn’t have to get your hands dirty.”

“I hate my part in that,” Lucy said.  “You want to talk about weak arguments?”

“Practice is meant to have a price.  Sometimes that price is the risk taken, but they’ve learned to tip the scales, to cheat-”

“In one recent instance, they were even helped by Maricica,” Verona commented, rolling her eyes slightly.

“They’ve learned to game the system and now they’re in the process of becoming it,” Lis pressed on, despite the interruption, his voice firm.

“Like Charles did?” Verona asked.

“Like the Carmine Exile did, but the Carmine doesn’t expect to last.  He has a few months to a few years to enact change, and he will… but then he goes.  Two years at the most.  That’s why it’s all I’m asking for.”

Lucy took a step forward, stopping only when Edith tensed, eyes glowing.  Lucy argued, “And if you fail, we lose Kennet and everything.  You don’t have that much trust from us.  So swear an oath.  You put everything on the line.  Or cut it short enough we can act against Musser if we have to.”

“What will you give us?”

“That’s baseline,” Lucy said, voice harder now.  “We’re giving you a lot even being here.”

“I thought I was the one going out on a limb here,” Lis responded.  He looked unhappy, and the fatigue was showing again.  “I want certain Others to have sanctuary.  Put them in the undercity, or Lost Kennet, if you get that far.  They aren’t to be mistreated, bound, or imprisoned.”

“If it’s the undercity, that’s a tall order,” Verona pointed out.

“Work it out.”

“We get veto rights,” Lucy said.  “It can’t be just any Other, if they’re too dangerous-”

“Limited vetoes.  At least make an attempt to accommodate.”

“House on Half Street,” Verona jumped in.

“What of it?” Lis asked.

“I want it.  Ken was going to give it to me, I’m pretty sure.  I know you have that ability.  It’s minor for you but it’s major for me.  It’s my spot.”

“And a statue,” Lucy said.

“A statue?” Lis asked.

“Downtown.  War memorial.  We make it a bit of a shrine.  Something for the local Dog Tags.  A way to memorialize John and Yalda.”

“That’s harder than an abandoned house.”

“Work it out.  But I want it there where you have to feel it as a part of Kennet, and where Edith has to see it if she’s going to stick around,” Lucy said, her voice hard. “A reminder this isn’t over, this wasn’t and isn’t okay.  Musser takes priority, saving the town from crumbling takes priority.  That’s the only reason we’re taking it this far.  Statue, Verona’s house, and we get a shot at Musser.  If he or anyone tied to him in the slightest gets close to making a move on Kennet, or getting close to done, truce is over.”

“Protection.”

“Truce.  We’re not going to fucking protect you,” Lucy replied.  “Edith’s got serious issues and the rest of you are massive targets.  Maricica is being chased by a primeval, she’s flirting with upsetting the Winter court, she’s flirting with upsetting the Dark Fall court-”

“By being such a loser,” Verona added.

“-And do I even need to get started on the trouble Charles is baiting in?  You can’t seriously expect us to protect you.  We figure you fucked up Kennet and created this knot to turn the town into something that helps protect you… that’s your protection, I guess.”

“If you set up perimeter defenses or measures to secure Kennet against outsiders, you don’t arrange them to exclude us.”

“Oh!” Verona perked up.  “When I dropped some trees down near the Carmine contest, they got really pissy.  Sable almost set me up to get killed because of it.  I’m wondering if there are rules.  In fact, I bet there’s a rule that Chuck has to be accessible with a twenty-four hour trip.  I don’t think we can set up barriers or protections.”

“I do believe she’s right, or close to right,” Miss noted, speaking up for the first time in a while.

“Isn’t that a shame, that you and Charles tied up your domains like that?” Lucy asked.  “That’s a question, not a statement, it isn’t a shame, I don’t think.  It’s irony.”

Lis frowned, turning his head to glance back at Edith.

“You can’t ask the girls to extend protection if extending that protection would require them to violate fundamental rules,” Miss said.

“I’d ask to bring more Others in.”

“Why?”

“It’s a mutual gain.  Charles is working to weaken the hold some of the oldest and most dangerous practitioner families have on the area.  Musser chief among them.  We may need the ability to send one dangerous, powerful, or subversive Other at a key person or place when they’re weakest.  Everyone here should want Musser stopped.”

“That’s maybe mutual gain until they get traced back to Kennet,” Matthew noted.  “At which point it’s disaster for Kennet.”

Lis shook his head.  “If we make that mistake, the protections end early, by your rules.”

“Truce, not protections,” Lucy repeated.  “And that barely leaves us any time.”

“Whichever it may be.  Do I have to remind you I don’t want Kennet attacked or raided by the likes of Musser, either?  I am Kennet.”

Verona made the same face she’d made earlier.

“We’ll take it to the council,” Miss said.  “A truce for six months, or until Musser takes notice of Kennet, or until he draws near to the end of his plan.  Which will likely be less than six months from now.  We agree to take in no more than three Others.  We’ll come back to you with minimum requirements and rules about vetoes.  I expect the others will have their requests.  Rook has some plans in motion.  She won’t want those disturbed.  Toadswallow will want to protect his market.  Verona gets the house, the Dogs get their statue.”

“That requires certain contrivances, distractions…”

“You’re not doing much, are you?” Lucy asked.  “It’s Maricica who’s out there making contacts, Charles is mucking things up.”

“It requires money,” Lis replied.  He might have looked like a skinny accountant, but he had the expression of a pissed off gangster in a movie, like he was ready to spit.

It was kind of funny that the statue request was bothering him so much.

“Figure it out.  I think it’s fitting there’s some element of sacrifice in it,” Lucy told Lis.

“The guests are protected and Edith joins the council.”

“That’s bull,” Verona retorted.  “That last bit.”

“Fine,” Matthew said.  “But she gets one vote, no more, and there’s no guarantee she’ll be listened to or respected.”

“I’ll manage,” Edith said.

Verona looked over at Matthew, frowning.

“Okay?” Miss asked.

“You don’t stand in our way, we don’t stand in yours?” Lucy asked.  “That’s the truce.  Temporary.”

Lis nodded his head.

“Are you planning on coming after us?” Edith asked.  “After the truce ends?  After Charles?”

“How could we?” Lucy asked.

“The fact you answered with a question instead of a no is telling.”

“It’s very not telling,” Verona replied.  “We don’t know what the situation will be in a few days, weeks, or months.  Like Edith said, no absolutes.”

Lis nodded.  He returned to being that older, tired ‘Nettie’ type person from before, dressed for a job interview in clothes that didn’t suit her.  Was that Lis’ preferred form?

The landscape and the trees shifted as Lis altered the cityscape.  She turned to go.  Edith followed, but couldn’t resist one last comment.  “I can’t believe you left me and our house.”

“You threw us away long before I left.”

She shook her head.

The trees moved, the distortion moving with them, and both Lis and Edith were whisked away.

“You okay, Miss?” Lucy asked.  “That had to be enraging.”

“Let’s focus on other things.”

“Matthew?” Verona asked.

“I think I’ll be skipping council meetings for the next long while.  I’ll assume I can have someone else vote on my behalf?” he asked.

“Yes,” Miss said.  “Probably for the best.”

“I hope I wasn’t presumptuous,” Lucy told Grandfather.  “About the statue?”

“It’s a nice thought.  Nicer that it will be a reminder for his enemies,” Grandfather answered her.  “I don’t think John, Yalda, or any of us expected anything except an unmarked grave, possibly with the tags draped over it.”

“He deserves good things,” Lucy said, touching her chest where the tags hung beneath her sweatshirt and shirt.  “Even if he was a self-sacrificing idiot.”

“Even if he was, yes,” Grandfather replied.

“School-night sleepover?” Lucy asked Verona.

Verona nodded.

Gainsaid for another, what, twenty-three hours?

Just gotta get my clothes, get my items.  I’ll be using magic items exclusively for the next day, Verona thought.

She eased up the stairs, keeping her feet close to the walls.  She’d liked moving around silently even as a kid, imagining herself as a little cat padding around, and she’d learned tricks from a little handbook on how to be a clever spy.  Once, she and Lucy had even rigged an obstacle course, setting up pyramids of cans, bells on strings, potato chips littering the floor that would crunch if stepped on, and they’d take turns running the course, with the other person changing things up and then listening to see if they could hear the other person coming.

This wasn’t as fun.  She could hear her dad’s television blaring.  Rounding the corner in the stairs, the light from the TV cast blues and purples down the unlit hallway.  She didn’t flick the switch.

Better to slip into her room, to not have to explain anything.

Get her stuff and go.

Doorknob turned, handle held with two hands so it wouldn’t rattle as she lifted it.  She was partway into her room when she saw the shape on her bed.

Her dad.  The bed bowed slightly beneath his weight as he sat where she’d sat when she’d had Jeremy there.

“What are you doing in my-”

“What are you doing?” he asked.  He sounded like he was out of breath.  She could see his stomach going in and out as he breathed.  “What are you wearing?”

He had a handful of her clothes, grabbed them, threw them toward her.  They hit the floor and slid to her feet.

She was looking down at it when the witch hat and cape landed on the pile.  Her head snapped up.

Papers crumpled in his hand.  He whispered.  “What are you doing, Verona?”

“Careful,” she told him.

A rune lit up in response to the word.  The rune burned through the paper and ignited it.  He flinched but held on.  “What is this!?”

“It’s none of your business,” she breathed, still getting her equilibrium.

“You are my business!  I’m your father!  What is this?  Witchcraft!?”

“Dad-”

“What are you doing?” he asked.  He lunged forward, grabbing her arm, and steered her toward the center of the room.  “I thought this might be drugs, these pipes and vials-!”

He pushed a hand through the arrangement, knocking some bits over.  Fluid spilled onto the desk.

“I looked at the notes, it’s not drugs is it?  It’s insanity.”

“Stop.  You don’t know what you’re messing with!”

She reached for her books and papers and he pushed them across the desk.  Some fell between the side of her art desk and the wall, runes lighting up in the darkness of that space.

“You’re going to screw everything up!”

Verona stopped.  She saw the window, a face peering through.

“You’re a nightmare.  Both when I’m sleeping and regularly, sometimes.  Alpeana, how many times do I have to tell you to fuck off with this?”

Her dad disappeared.

“Och, arright,” Alpeana replied, muffled by the intervening window.  “Ah only juist arrived.  Was seein’ if ye were arright, lassie.  Gainsaid ‘n all.”

“I guess.  It’s one of my least favorite things.”

“Ye’ve been good ta me of late, aye?  Bringin’ me bits ‘n bobs.  Ye need anythin’?”

“Maricica was there.”

“Aye.”

“Distracted.  Struggling with being chased by a prehistoric Other.”

“Aye.”

“She stop in to say hi to you?”

“Nae.  She dinnae.”

“Got any sense if our big guy wearing the red furs is looking in?”

Alpeana shook her head.

“Do us a favor?  Bring everyone in?”

“Everyone?” Alpeana asked.

“Yeah.  Tomorrow.  For right now, can you link up Avery and Lucy and me?  Gotta strategize.”

Verona put a little electric razor down on the table.

“What’s that?” Mallory asked.

Mallory had added a shitty tattoo of a duck to the side of her own neck.  It was covered in plastic, and from certain angles it could be interpreted as a rabbit or a tattoo of a pillow.

“That is a little piece of machinery that has way more juice than the tattoo gun I made you out of my old electric toothbrush.”

“Ah, tattoo cat.”

“Yeah.”  The electric toothbrush had had a cat shaped handle.  Verona had kept that part intact while turning the stem and the part that had been the rotating brush into the needle of the tattoo gun.

“I like tattoo cat,” Mallory said.

“Yeah, so do I, but I think your customers don’t.  Want to upgrade?”

Mallory reached down, got her bag, and began to pull out various things, including some packs of cigarettes and an old box with lots of little trios and five-packs of cigarettes wrapped in elastic bands.  There were condoms, empty needles, box cutters, socks, a few piercings, two rolls of toilet paper, a very large spider or scorpion in a pencil case with a blurry transparent lid…

Mallory, arm still deep in her bag, searching, had gone still.  Verona ducked her head down to peer into the bag to see if Mallory had grabbed onto something forbidden.  Then she turned around.

There was a guy out in the hall wearing low-slung jeans with boxers creeping up over top.  He had long hair and no shirt on.  He was only slightly muscular, but he had almost no body fat, so the lines in his chest and stomach really stood out.

Verona leaned into Mallory, who startled.

“That’s Shirtless,” Mallory explained, in a whisper.

“That’s the whole schtick, huh?” Verona asked.

“It’s a good schtick.”

“Fair.”

“I want him to be my canvas.”

“You’ve got to get way better at tattooing before you defile that canvas.”

“Defile?  Do you want me to tattoo a black line across your face?  Because I will.”

“I get bummed out if I have a nice sketchbook and I don’t have good art on the first few pages, and here you are, marking people…”

“I’ll get super good at tattooing, and the people with my first works on their skin will be proud.”

“Long way to go.”

Mallory lunged, cat toothbrush tattoo gun with the batteries strapped to the end buzzing.  Verona grabbed Mallory’s wrists, and fended off the tattoo gun as it came close to her face.  They wrestled, two of them  leaning against one shitty school chair, the feet of the chair squeaking and scraping against the floor as their weight shifted.

“I’m just being honest!”

“Fuck your honesty!  I’m going to write that on your face!  Fuck… your… honesty!”

Verona squinted one eye shut as the tattoo gun spat tiny flecks of ink onto the side of her face.  She was managing to keep it from making contact.  “He’s looking.”

“Don’t believe you, bitch!”

“I can’t lie.”

“Fuck!” Mallory swore.  She turned, saw him in the doorway, smirking, then stopped fighting, dropping to a sitting position beside the chair, tattoo gun held in her lap, facing him.

“What are you doing?” Verona asked.

“Shut up,” Mallory said, under her breath.

“You’re being weird.”

“Shut up.”

Shirtless smiled, then walked off.

“Isn’t it like, five degrees Celsius out?”

“Lower at night,” Mallory said.  “But a lot of the lieutenants, bosses, major figures, gray sheep, they get twisted some, right?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s gotta be the hottest guy in school.  Maybe he gets a little cold resistance twisted up in him?”

Verona wiped ink off the side of her face.  “Uh huh.  Wouldn’t rule it out but wouldn’t bet on it either.  I don’t think he’s the hottest guy, either.”

“The magic stuff must be rotting your brain.”

Verona snorted.

“Ever want a guy to just say ‘fuck it, I’m going to treat you like a princess’?”

“Not really.  Aren’t princesses, like, currency?  For arranged marriages, political alliances?  Do you want me to see?  I could ask the V.P., run it by Shirtless… say hey, there’s this really cool, mercenary tattoo artist I know-”

“Don’t.”

“-she’s terrible, someone needs to do something to get her to stop tattooing people for a while.  Maybe a certain shirtless someone can be ordered to treat her like a princess-”

“I’ll hire people to hold you down while I tattoo a dick on your forehead if you don’t fuck off, I don’t care what your status is.  You’re not funny.”

“-distract her, start things off as a ruse, then fall in love for real…”

“Maybe,” Mallory relented.  She raised her head to look up at Verona.  “Fuck off, though.  He’s got girls lined up.  I’d be like, eighth in line, and the girl who’s first in line and with him now is pretty intense.  Tore out a girl’s braces with one partial tooth, and ripped out seven of her ear piercings for ‘cutting in line’.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.”

“Yeah.  Not worth it, even if he’s nice to look at.”

Verona shifted position in the chair, putting her knees over Mallory’s shoulders.  Mallory mimed like she was going to tattoo Verona’s ankle, but didn’t.  “I’ll set you up with the new tattoo gun and I’ll give it my best shot in exchange forrr…”

She picked up mostly cigarettes, considered the condom but didn’t trust it, considered the syringes but didn’t trust them.  Not a lot of this was great.  “…These cigarettes, and you have to let me give you an art lesson.”

“I should be glad you’re not asking for a lot, but that’s annoying.”

“There’s got to be something fundamentally wrong here.  Show me your hand position.”

Mallory glared at her.  Verona lightly kicked her, lifting up a foot, knee still hooked over Mal’s shoulder, and let it drop, heel thumping against her stomach.  A surly Mal showed Verona the hand position.

“Can I try fixing this line?”

“Can I stab you?”

Verona kicked Mal lightly again.  Mal passed her the improvised tattoo gun with a sigh.

“Fresh needle?”

“In the front of my bag.”

Verona was about five minutes into annoying Mallory with how steady her hand was, and getting Mallory to break from her usual method, when Tashlit stepped into the doorway.  She handed Mal the tattoo gun, gave the girl a pat on the shoulder, wiped her hand with a napkin.  “I’ll get your thing set up after.”

“You’d better, or you’re giving me back what you took!”

“Heya,” Verona greeted Tashlit.  They exchanged high-fives.  “Talked to the V.P.  We’re good to escort our guys through.  We’ll have some company, they’re outside the school.  You might’ve seen them.”

Tashlit nodded.  She poked at Verona’s face, daubing away a bit of ink.

“Oh, yeah.”  Verona used the black part of her sweater sleeve and wiped at the black ink.  “Better?”

Tashlit nodded.

They headed through the hall, and one older student glared at Verona, not moving out of the way, until her guy friend pulled on her arm, getting her out of the way.

She overheard him whisper, “She’s off limits.”

It was good it wasn’t because of Tashlit, specifically, that they were intimidated.  It was because of her.

But speaking of Tashlit…

Verona didn’t want to ask, but she had to ask.

“If we move forward with things, then I might be doing the demesne ritual soon,” Verona told Tashlit.

Tashlit nodded and gave her a thumbs up.

“But like… I like breaking patterns, when I can.  I’d love to mess things up, if you were willing, y’know?  If you had a decision you’d made about the familiar ritual?”

They reached the door and let themselves out.  Tashlit stopped just past the door, instead of continuing forward to the group of kids who were waiting by the opening in the fence.

Verona looked up at her friend.

Tashlit shook her head.

“Okay,” Verona thought.

Tashlit gestured, putting her hand up as if measuring height-

“Because I’m short?” Verona asked.

Tashlit shook her head, tapping her wrist, then stroking her forearm with the side of one floppy finger, several times.

Years, time, in a few years…

“It’s cool, you don’t have to explain.  Let’s not keep these guys waiting, or they might get pissy.”

Tashlit nodded, but Tashlit still wanted to explain.  She had other reasons, something about home, about being a traveler… being a familiar might mean being stuck and unable to travel.  Which wasn’t exactly true.

Past a certain point Verona was just trying to keep composed, and the signs weren’t making any sense anymore.

It took a bit before Tashlit seemed to realize and stopped.

They made the trip in what was, for them, a kind of pained silence, over to the Arena, where Montague lurked in a parked car, keeping the doorway open, since the usual methods wouldn’t work.

“Love you, Tash,” Verona said, because she did, and because that was the policy she’d developed over the summer, when trying to hold onto friendships and other relationships despite strain and hurt.

She shut the door.

Verona:
I’m behind your place.

She saw the head in the window.

It was dark out, and too overcast for a good moon, which made it considerably darker.  Kennet only kept some of the streetlights on at night, as a cost saving measure, and because things closed down early, and half the ones around here were out or dim.

Jeremy emerged from his house, wearing a coat with a dark forest green on the lower half and a lighter green for the sleeves and upper half.  He looked around before coming over.

“Hi,” he greeted her.

She tugged on his collar and got him to bend down, while standing on her toes, to kiss him.

“What was that for?”

“Had a bad day, wanted some company.  Up for it?” she asked.

“Yeah, but why a bad day?”

She shrugged, shaking her head.  “Feeling powerless, friend who’s from out of town was maybe going to move in, bailed on me.”

“Sorry,” he said, frowning.

“I’ll try and fix stuff later.  How are you doing?”

“I’m okay.  Missing Wallace.  Missed you.  You weren’t at school.”

“Yeah.  Was distracted, bummed out.”

He nodded.  “Want a hug?  Friend hug?”

She nodded.

The pegs of her duffel coat, Lucy’s from last year with a dye job, made a zippy-whooshy sound against the polyester material of his jacket.  She rocked right to left, making the sound a lot more pronounced.  She could smell his deodorant.  It was a nice smell.  Usually guys in their grade smelled like bad B.O. and ass, obnoxious, super-artificial smells that were probably called something like blue wolf scream or girl seducer maxxxtreme.  Or something like this.

She was glad Jeremy was sane, and sanity restoring.

She made more zippy-zoopy sounds, squeezing his soft jacket that was surrounding his skinny, harder body.

“Is that a sign your mood is slightly improved?”

“Yeah,” she said, face resting where the jacket was parted and there was just sweater or sweatshirt or whatever it was.  She sighed.

“I’m sorry you’re bummed out.”

She pulled back a bit, dug into her pocket, and then reached into the dark, finding his arm.  She traced her way down until she found his hand, and then pressed a foil packet into his palm.  With the way his hand was turned to the side, like he was ready to give a handshake, only the steady pressure of one finger pushing the packet there really kept it from falling to the ground.  His hand closed slightly around it.

“If you want to,” she murmured.  “That’s one from the little health class we had with Mr. Lai last semester.  It’s not expired.”

“I-” he hesitated.

Her heart sank.

The silence stretched.

“I don’t want to say the wrong thing, but taking forever probably isn’t great, huh?”

“Not great.  But you look after you.  Don’t say yes just ’cause,” she said.

It felt like the Tashlit thing all over again.

“I want to look after you too, though.”

“Thanks.”

It felt like such an awkward response.

“I want to.  But I also… is this because you had a bad day?  Or will you having a bad day ruin it a bit?  This would be your first-?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too.”

“Okay.  Cool,” she murmured.  Her finger was a bit sore, holding the packet there at an awkward angle, but she worried if she shifted it would fall and this would stop.  Or they wouldn’t be able to find the condom, or something else that was stupid.  “If you want to wait until I’m not having a kinda crummy time of it, it might be a long, long wait.  My dad situation sucks, I talked about that before, I don’t really want to get into it now.”

“Sure.”

“And things with Lucy haven’t been as good as they used to be since summer, and Avery’s gone, and everything’s a struggle.  Kennet’s disintegrating, y’know?”

“Yeah.”

“I just really want something I want, you know?  I want to grab for good things.  And I want you.  A lot’s crummy and then you’re one of the only things that’s not, and I like your face and body and all that, y’know?”

“Same here.”

“Your smell and how you’re gentle and nice.”

“My smell?”

“Deodorant or soap, whatever it is.”

“I just grabbed the same brand as my dad.”

“Well, it’s a good one,” she said.  She was staring firmly into the triangular bit of his chest where she’d just been laying her head.  “I want you.  I want to experience this and do this.  But I get it if you want to say no.  If you gotta.  Maybe take it as an ego boost for the road, huh?”

“I want you too, except I gotta…”

Her heart sank.

“…I guess I gotta figure out what lie to give my mom.”

“Say you’re walking me home.”

“Gonna take longer than that, isn’t it?”

“Enh.”

“I’ll tell her it’s dark and you’re scared?” he asked.  “And that I got stuck talking to your dad?”

“Anyone who truly knows me knows the darkness is my element, and I’m less of a scaredy-cat than most.”

“Well, my mom doesn’t know you.”

“True.”

He nodded.  He exhaled, then looked up.  “It’s cold.”

“I’ve got a place we can go.”

“I’ll be right back,” he said.  And he nearly ran, he was in such a rush.

She smiled a bit.

It took Jeremy a couple of minutes, while she stood there with hands in her pockets, antsy.  Then he emerged, and she took his hand, and she dragged him off to the House on Half Street.

Maybe to make it a bit hers again, after it had been taken from her.

Nightmare, she thought to herself.

Alpeana was thankfully more careful than she’d been on previous nights.  There were some fleeting scenes, but they passed quickly.

She was on the rooftop of the Arena.  Fires burned, but were frozen in time.  The moon was red, and Kennet was distorted.

Avery hugged her.  Snowdrop followed immediately after with a hug of her own.

“Did you seriously get taller since we last met?” Avery asked.

“Nah.  Probably not much.  Started wearing my winter boots.”

“You know what changed for me?”

“Since we last talked?  Uhhh… Implement ritual?”

“I got a girlfriend!”

Lucy, stepping out of the smoke, said, “You mentioned that when you last talked to Verona and I on the phone.”

Avery nodded enthuiastically.

“And in texts.  And in email, when we were sharing notes on the Lost stuff.”

“As a P.S.,” Verona clarified, “In case we hadn’t got the message, I assume.”

“And an image.”

Avery nodded enthusiastically once again.

“Pretty kick-ass,” Verona told Avery.

“It’s great.  She’s great.”

“It’s terrible,” Snowdrop said.  “I hate her when she’s like this.  Not the girl I would’ve chosen.  She’s so abusive toward me.”

“It’s hard to believe you introduced your girlfriend to your opossum,” Lucy noted.

“What else am I going to do?  We’re bonded for life.”

Verona looked off to the side, thinking of Tashlit.

She saw Rook, a little younger in actual Dream, hair no longer gray, the purples and sunset salmons and oranges of her skin stronger.  She was wearing something better suited to fighting, with a bit more armor, held a full-face mask with a fanged smile with partial lipstick on the lips, positioned sideways over her lower face, and carried a metal staff with a large wrought-iron birdcage on the end.

Tashlit was further off, standing by the corner of the roof.  Looking over but not wanting to approach- at least until she saw Verona looking.  Tashlit looked mostly human, wore a raincoat with a black sweater, and looked over at Verona with eyes that had that yellow tint to them, like the eyes beneath her skin were.  Her left eye socket had two eyes peering through.

I told Alpeana last night.  That I wanted everyone.

Montague manifested, wearing a long coat, and old fashioned clothing that flickered and changed at a slower rate than his flesh did, which remained a crimson-tinted, rapid-fire display of macabre images.

Matthew, same as he ever was.

The goblins.  They came in clusters, like Alpeana was traveling from place to place.

The ghouls.  Nibble and Chloe, neither of whom had any ghoul traits.

“You’d better come in for a hug when you’re done!” Chloe called out, face tilted to look up at the sky.

A group of people emerged from the smoke, bringing their own sources of smoke with them.  Four or five of them, hard to make out in shadow, hands raised like they were holding cigarettes, but the haze of smoke hung low and hands and heads were hidden.  One cigarette was held out in front, in plain view.

Then others.  The Vice Principal with Freak and Squeak.  The Bitter Street Witch.

There would be no Reggie.  Reggie was watching the refugees.  There couldn’t be Miss, because Miss didn’t sleep, and she was out of town besides.  And no Dog Tags, because they didn’t sleep either.  They could doze and rest, and they could be unconscious, but Dream and War didn’t easily intersect.

Bracken showed, hands in his pockets, frowning.

“Surprised he showed,” Lucy murmured.  “Said it was up to him, he usually wouldn’t be down for this stuff.  He could’ve stayed with the refugees.”

“For his brother?”  Avery asked.  “Tag?”

“Bag,” Lucy said.

“Right.”

Louise.  She looked only mildly surprised at it all.

And Melissa.  She looked like she had before the injury.  Petite, like Verona, but with a lot of blonde hair that was crimped and thus just a really massive mane of hair.  It looked like half of a Melissa could have hidden inside it all.

Alpeana dropped in by way of her hair, which spooled out behind her, like it was attached to the night sky, an endless flow.  She slowed as she came closer to the rooftop, then disconnected.  She submitted to a big hug from Chloe.

“Thank you, Alpeana,” Lucy said.

“Innae to it.”

“Ground rules,” Lucy said.  “No saying the name of the guy with the red furs.  Goblins, don’t be idiots.”

“Really easy for me to not say the name because I don’t know the name,” Melissa said.  She’d gone over to stand between Bracken and Louise.

“You met him.  With Clem?” Avery asked.

“The Asian woman with the weird eye?  I still don’t remember his name.  He was skeevy.”

“He is skeevy, just in a totally different way,” Verona pointed out.

“We don’t talk about tonight’s dream, if you want to have another dream meet, you let her know, subtly.”

“Gifts,” Alpeana said.  “They’re nice.  Place ’em at tha right side o’ tha cave if ye want somethin’.”

Lucy turned.  “Louise, Melissa, I know a lot of this is confusing.  If you decide you want out, or you don’t want to remember tonight, Matthew is pretty good at helping you to forget.  Bracken, option’s open to you too.”

Bracken snorted.

“I think the old forgetting was worn down a bit,” Louise said.  “Strange opossum-obsessed child hanging around.  People coming and going.”

“We wanted you along to represent the humans.  Which we kind of do, but… yeah.”  Verona shrugged.  “We’re preparing something big, and it’s all hands on deck, everyone who wants a say gets a say.  We’re finalizing a deal with the people who wrecked Kennet and the original plans we had for it.”

“Kennet’s felt different since the summer,” Louise said.  “Not just because of the lack of Snowdrop, or Matthew staying.  It feels… hurt.”

“It is.  It does,” Lucy said.

Louise’s eye had a drop of blood caught on the eyelashes.  It became a thin line down her cheek.

Avery spoke up, voice bright despite her efforts to be serious.  “It was done by four individuals who I won’t name, but they’re Matthew’s wife, a Faerie, a doppleganger-turned city spirit, and-”

“An asshole,” Verona supplied.

“A real dickhole,” Avery said.

Lucy carried on with the explanation, “-and we lost friends, and a lot went wrong, and we’re still picking up the pieces.  Kennet’s fading.  People are leaving, it’s hard to get to and it’s going to get worse as winter hits.  So we’re making a deal, and some of that’s aimed at stopping the bleeding.  But we don’t expect that to go perfectly.  It feels like they want us off their backs, but if things happen in a way that hurts… basically everyone here, and gets us out of the way, I don’t think they’ll cry over it.  They might even help it happen.”

“That means they’ll give us the minimum possible notice before ending the truce and letting us act.  They might come after us in the same moment outside attackers do.”

“Rich wizards,” Avery supplied, for the people who didn’t know.  Melissa and Louise.  And maybe the more scatterbrained goblins.  “Attacking at the same time as the four locals who betrayed us.”

It looked like everyone was following along well enough.

“It’s time to get organized,” Verona said.  “Roles for everyone.”

“For Louise and Melissa, we’d like Melissa to be a blackguard.  Lying for us, helping us to manage situations,” Avery said.  “Louise as a representative for humans.  We had someone who did that before.”

“On the pretext of getting ready for trouble,” Lucy added, “We’re going to get ready for them.  In case they pull the rug out from under us.  If the truce ends and they act against us or try to sabotage us, we need to be ready to respond, to hit them back harder.  We need to be secure, whether that’s with Toadswallow’s market or what we’ll be building for Miss, as a third Kennet.”

“Identifying and seizing what we want and need,” Verona said, pausing to gather her thoughts.

I want to have the things I want.  A cute boy to experiment with.  It means the House on Half Street as a place to retreat to.  Experimenting with cool, scary alchemy, summoning, and anything else that catches my fancy.  It means megahuge, Kennet-wide practice shizzle.

She didn’t want to think her evening with Jeremy had some big, important significance, because that ascribed an importance to sex that she didn’t believe in.  It was a thing, an animal thing and a human thing, a for-fun thing or a meanignful thing, and it depended on the person.

Where it mattered, she felt, was that it marked her being more assertive in seeking out those things she wanted.

Verona went on.  “Let’s take our shot at fixing things, balancing them out.  That means some upheaval.  We’re going to start by creating another Kennet.  It’s going to take a fuckton of juice, a lot of prep, and support from all corners.  As soon as we have confirmation from Miss that our enemy is distracted and tied up, we’re going to do what I think of as the equivalent of bringing in a giant meteor from space down onto Kennet, straight into a prepared blast zone, where we can channel that energy and do something with that material.  We’ll have two demesnes, at least, to help secure that.  Ideally three.”

“And just so it’s clear, that comet we’re bringing down?” Avery asked.  “That’s going to be our friend and leader, Miss.”

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